Lacking in Motivation

Its Sunday night. Spring break is over and I go back to work in the morning. But instead of getting ready and going to bed, I'm up and wired. Partly its that I was so blah and lazy yesterday and today and partly because I wish it was just summer and I didn't have to worry about going back to work for a couple of months.

I don't know how it is I can love my job and not want to go back at the same time. Part of it is that I'm just tired of the grind and feeling like I get no respect or control in my job. I feel like a hypocrite. I wanted a classroom, lesson plans, papers to grade and kids to teach. Instead I have a lot of sitting around waiting to be able to be helpful. And no classes to teach and only attendence in seminar, think homeroom, to take.

But lets not forget the IEPs to plan and the "progress" to track and the fact that I am somehow responsible for the success of children I've never met. That's the part I'm beginning to hate.

Went and saw dad over spring break. Surprised him. Got to spend three whole days with him. I know it sounds selfish, but it was nice to enjoy his company without having the boys around, they went to see their dad and seem like they had a good time.

I really want to move to Tennessee. I know this seems like a reversal from previous positions. In a way it is. In another way, its a refinement of previous positions. I miss teaching science. I miss being close to my dad. I hate moving. Therefore, moving again must mean moving to be near my dad and to once again teach science.

I've put in several applications for jobs in his area. If I were braver I'd just move and trust that I'm hard enough working and enterprising enough to land on my feet and float until the science job showed up.

I'm not sure I am that brave though. I like having that certainty that there was a paycheck coming that more than covers what I need for the month. I remember what it was like to juggle when I paid bills and bought groceries so that things never quite got too lean or too late or too dark. It made me feel small and scared and worried all the time.

I think I'm a bad mom. I love my little sons and even like playing with them, but sometimes I know they want me to play but I get caught up in a show or something and let the whole day pass and spend hardly any time with them. Today was like that. I have legitimate work I needed to do, didn't do it. Didn't play with Noah either. I wonder why I do that.

Now its almost eleven, he's in bed, and I wish I had played with him. I suck as a mom.

Watched "trainspotting" or at least part of it this evening. I turned it off after the part where the baby died. If I had known that was in there, I wouldn't have started the movie at all. I knew it was controversial with drug use and aids and criminality, but somehow no one mentioned the dead baby. That's probably part of why I wish the little guys were still up and that I had played more with them today.

Gotta do better. Better at work. Better with the boys. Better about saving money, especially if I really am moving to Tennessee.

I've never stayed anywhere longer than two years, not since mom died. Maybe I need to examine why that is.

How about some video?

So I have a built in webcam and figured I'd play around with it. I don't know if posting a video is smart or not. But it is weird to watch myself. I wonder if I make those faces when I'm talking to people?

Anyway

My little boys are driving me nuts. They are either best friends and partners in crime, or they are tattling on each other and hitting and fighting.


One more week until spring break. I have to finish state science and reading testing, so instead of doing my job and helping kids learn, I'll be fulfilling a federal mandate to test test test test kids.

I think every politician who wants to work on education policy should be required to take and pass with exemplary scores, every test the kids have to. We'll see how they feel about testing then. I'd give an example of the odd ball question, but its illegal for me to tell the contents of the test questions.

Anyway, its daylights savings weekend and I'l lost as to what time it is. Either 10:46, computer, or 9:46, cell phone. Why we can't set the clocks half an hour back and leave the time like that year round, I just don't understand.

What can I say

It isn't that things aren't happening. And it isn't that I all of a sudden don't need to process them. Its just that the drive to write about it has gotten vaguer.

I'll get an idea about something to write about and file it away for when I have time, and then I get busy or I'm exhausted and can't put two words together.

To recap: I can't, but here's some things that have happened of late.

Its been two months since Jason broke up with me and it stings more now than it did then. I don't know if that's because I was in shock or denial or what. I loved him, still love him in a way. I wouldn't take him back, I know he'd hurt me. I still think he's a good person and I miss having him in my life.

I've been thinking a lot about relationships and why I don't have many and they don't work out. Its me that is the problem. On the one hand I am very independent. For example, a couple of weeks ago I went on a shopping trip with my cousins. My younger cousin is 21 and a college student. She went through a very rough time in high school with repeated running aways, staying with older men and taking drugs and trading sex for drugs and money. But now she's pretty much back on a normal track.

My point is that the girl has used up a lot of good will in the people who care about her. We were talking about checking accounts because her older sister, who is a year older than I am (31!) was complaining that her bank was charging her for stupid things like seeing printouts of account activity to the tune of $5 a page.

My bank gives online access with real time activity shown and pays me interest on any balance under ten grand. The younger cousin's contribution was that she likes a different bank because it's easy to set up the account and besides, with her account at the same bank as her parents, its very easy to transfer money from theirs to hers when she needs it.

That detail shouldn't bother me, but it does. It was unnecessary to include at all and its an asinine reason to pick a bank anyway. But then I got to thinking. I don't have parents that can give me money when I need it. I never have had that. As a result, I am very responsible with my money and I take pride in being able to pay all my bills or finding a way to make things work if I can't. I also wouldn't take money from my dad or my aunt if they offered.

Back to relationships, to be in a relationship, you have to be willing to take from someone something you need. Emotion, support, sex, money, help. Something. I enjoy many parts of being in a relationship, but I hate needing it. I don't let myself need another person in that way.

That's very safe. It protects me and keeps me strong, but I think it also pushes others away.

The other reason I am no good at relationships is that I've never seen or been in a "good" one. I've seen them shown on TV or read about idealized versions in books or either the self help or romance variety, but in person, not really.

I think a behavior that complex, with give and take, compromise and boundary, all that, it has to be learned. I saw and still see situations that I don't want any part of. My parents were alcoholic, mentally ill, dysfunctional messes. My granparents hated each other and were only together because it was proper. My aunt, the one who gives money to her daughter, is married to a man who I know has personality issues.

Drugs, abuse, mental instability, selfishness; these are the things I see people I love stuggling with in their spouses and partners. I don't want that. I realize that loving someone makes those problems disappear.

Maybe I'm too independent. Maybe I am too picky about the qualities I want in a partner. I do know that I want mental health, sanity, physical health and attractiveness. I want humor and honor and honesty and work ethic.

Those things are hard to find on their own. All together, probably impossible. And then the person who has all those would have to be willing to put up with and even care for me.